


Retrograde Motion

by Mitsuhachi



Series: Jager OC Hell [6]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Depression, Frigg and pythios are spades 4lyfe, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, also not okay, sorin is a Real Heterodyne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 09:39:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6112502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitsuhachi/pseuds/Mitsuhachi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Frigg and Pythios went home to Mechanicsburg</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Flashover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3330521) by [adiduck (book_people)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck). 



> Endless thank yous as usual to Mirrors, who should practically be listed as co-author for how much they helped with this fic, and also as always for the lovely Pythios. Also to Adiduck, for letting me borrow her Heterodyne!Sorin verse for this (since things go so much better in this verse than canon!verse, u dont even no sensei) and for holding my hand through much whining at having to write a character who was genuinely a good guy.

Everything was chaos: the generals had just escaped on an airship with the Lady Regent and her Consort, half the jager army was still deployed God knew where, no one knew what was going on and rumors were running wild. Bill and Barry Heterodyne had returned. That cow Lucretia had returned. There was a new Lady Heterodyne. The Regent’s son was now Lord Heterodyne. Sturmholten was attacking, no it was the Knights of Jove, no it was any of a dozen minor sparks, no it was England, Paris, New Oslo. Ghost-women from another dimension. Wulfenbach had betrayed them and was attacking Mechanicsburg, no he was helping to defend it.

The important thing at the moment was just to get off this airship. Pythios hurried through the hall with the rest of his brothers, racing towards the flight hangers. He could figure out the rest once he was on the ground.

“Stephanidos, Ben Ira--get hyur lazy asses op here, hyu iz goink mit mine squad!” Pythios looked up--some Corporal he didn’t recognize was herding a ragtag assortment of random jager from different units into one of the evacuation ships.

Beside him Frigg’s claws scraped on bare metal as he abruptly changed direction; Pythios hooked his arm and used him as a pivot to swing around himself, boosted himself up onto the flier’s ledge on the asshole’s stupid bendy knee and pulled him up after. Once he was up on the ledge Frigg shoved Pythios hard with his shoulder, not quite meeting his eyes, and Pythios openly sneered at his back. Some tall red guy jumped up after them and they had to separate as the airship began lifting off out of the hanger.

The sky around them was thick as a city street with tiny airships all going at cross-purposes and explosions everywhere. Even as Pythios watched two ships collided and went down in flames together.

“Look,” Frigg said, casually pointing at the battle below. “Iz almost as much of an ugly mess as hyu are.”

Pythios whirled around to snarl at him. “Hyu iz der vun dot iz a mess, hyu massif steeck ov fok, heff hyu effen been sober seence ve got op here?” Frigg’s eyes went narrow and cold.

“Hy kennot imagine vot might drive me to drink,” he said clipped and hard, and then dropped down to a vicious whisper, “mit der masters dead und efferyvun hy luff gone und hy em stuck op here mit only hyu left und hyu iz a _gottdemmed traitor._ Master Saturnus should heff renounced hyu.”

Pythios pulled his arm back to punch the sanctimonious hypocrite right in his awful face. “Hyu dunt get to call ME traitor, hyu didn’t effen--” but a massive shudder almost knocked him to the ground as the airship went down the last hundred feet far too fast; they were landing now and there was no more time. Outside someone was already shooting at the envelope; a green-furred guy in a bicorne knelt and whipped out a long rifle to fire back, and the rest of them had to pile out into the fray.

Something had carved enormous ditches into the landscape like claw marks from a giant, and whole swathes of earth were on fire between them. Broken bodies and smashed clanks and machinery littered the ground, ready to trip the unwary. Frigg jumped out ahead of him into the melee and Pythios lept without a second’s hesitation to keep pace.

The jagers on their impromptu squad scattered, and Pythios found himself back to back with Frigg in a ring of robotic liondogs. Frigg lunged forward to claw the metal jaw right off one’s face; Pythios did a high roll over his bent back to catch another one trying to bite Frigg’s unguarded neck in a ruthless coil that crushed it in an instant. A bolt flew off and out of the corner of his eye he saw it hit Frigg in the cheek, a little splash of red blood on bluegrey fur that Pythios liked far too much. He had to catch himself on his spear coming down, off balance for the barest moment. Frigg did an awful twist and reached out further than any normal man could have to knock a pouncing liondog right out of the air above Pythios. Pythios used the opening to swing his spear under Frigg’s arm, smashing open a fourth robot and giving Frigg a push back up. Frigg kept right on going with the momentum, scything out one long leg in a vicious kick that crushed the last one’s head. He landed in a graceful little crouch that made Pythios want to haul him up and kiss him for being a beautiful disaster and looked up at him, eyes shadowed beneath the brim of his hat.

Pythios gave him a spare nod and they were off again. Somewhere in this madness there was a Heterodyne, and they had vows to fulfil.

Frigg hopped like some sort of nightmare toad up onto the back of an enormous construct with tusks like an elephant and a body like a dragon, laughing madly as it flung its head up to try and gore him; Pythios used the distraction to slide underneath it and gut the thing in a shower of blood and viscera Pythios barely avoided in time.

Pythios lashed out his long tail to snatch up an enemy cannon seconds before the footsoldiers managed to light it, tossing it up away from them like a child playing with a stick; Frigg jumped up and sliced the metal barrel into three sections with his claws, landing just in front of the panicking men with a manic grin and death in his eyes.

A stiltwalker with lightning lashing from cylinders in his hands was trying to approach the gates of Mechanicsburg. Pythios looked back at Frigg. “Don’t hyu mess dis op,” he sneered, and then Frigg was running at him, teeth bared, and Pythios swung his spear in a glittering arc right at his chest. Frigg jumped at the last minute, landing lightly on the shaft, and Pythios swept him up along with the spear’s motion, catapulting him up to the level of the stiltwalker. Frigg did a wild flip and Pythios tossed the spear up at him; Frigg plucked the thing out of the air and plunged it into the stiltwalker’s chest before he could even start bringing up the lightning-flails. Frigg howled gleefully even as he fell back to the earth, tumbling in a way even Pythios found hard to track, and Pythios answered reflexively out of the cornerstone of his heart. “VE HUNT!”

Even riding the battlejoy, the enormous clank menacing an entire platoon of Mechanicsburg infantry was enough to make Pythios pause. It was just for a heartbeat, Frigg knew him too well to miss it. “Poor baby snake, iz hyu scared?” Frigg patted his cheek and he had a sudden vivid sense-memory of him doing exactly that one time in the deep woods, a rare quiet moment when they’d fought and fucked themselves too exhausted to stand and decided to curl up together instead. Frigg’s eyes had been soft and happy then; now they were hard with open contempt. “Hy vill protect hyu if hyu don’t tink hyu ken handle sumting so strong,” he mocked.

Pythios struck like a cobra, getting up in Frigg’s face in the middle of the battlefield with his collar twisted into a choking handhold. “Hy vill show hyu vhat hy ken do,” he promised, locking eyes with his...whatever they were. Pythios didn’t know. He gave Frigg a last shake and shoved him back to the ground.

The clank was big like a two-story building, but narrow; no problem to scale if you had the kind of length Pythios could bring to bear. He curled his long body around the thing’s leg and started to climb. Probably, he thought, he could have climbed it even as a human: the thing was covered with little holes like someone had built in deliberate handholds. Sparks, who knew, maybe they had.

Behind their barricade the Infantrymen started waving frantically and shouting something, but he couldn’t hear them over the sudden harsh whistling and the hiss of escaping steam. Below him Frigg was screaming, furious and terrified like Pythios had never heard him, and racing across the distance between where he’d been watching and the clank like if he pushed himself fast enough he’d catch up the sound itself.

‘Oh,’ Pythios thought, looking down at the hundreds of wicked spikes piercing clear through his body, ‘that must have been what those holes were for.’

He hung on the spikes and watched Frigg throw himself at the barricade, ricochet even faster up onto the thing’s knee and from there to it’s chest, right past Pythios to savagely rip open the thing’s faceplate, get at the machinery inside that directed its actions. Pythios coughed raggedly, felt the blood bubbling on his lips and pouring out of his side as something went off in the thing’s head right on top of Frigg. It was so loud that the noise of battle blanked out to a high pitched whine in Pythios’s ears and bright enough to make his eyes water right through closed eyelids and shielding hands.

The flash had been terrible, he thought, watching Frigg’s body drop like a rag doll to thump heavily on the ground. The tears welling up in his eyes didn’t even help the way they stung, it was so pointless. The spikes automatically retracted as the clank powered down, and Pythios curled up around the pain and let himself fall.


	2. Chapter 2

Frigg woke up in a cold room under soft sheets. Everything hurt. His ears were buzzing, but there was a vague suggestion that someone might be talking somewhere else far away. He didn’t know how many hours he’d been unconscious, but the lights were already off and the room was black like his eyes weren’t even open, so it had to be at least a few. He hoped he hadn’t missed ALL the fighting left. Maybe whoever it was would send reinforcements in the morning...

Frigg woke up in a cold room under soft sheets. Everything still hurt. It was still dark. There was the quick heavy tread of someone running in boots and someone running water to wash their hands. “Get dot vun to der critical cases room, ve dun heff de schtoff ve vill need in here,” someone snapped. “Get me dot eediot Jorgi, hy iz goink to--” someone else shouted in the hallway. Another person closer by was growling. Probably because they couldn’t see what they were goddamned doing. 

Frigg woke up in a slightly warmer room under soft sheets. Things hurt a bit less! It was still dark. “Hy dun tink dere iz much else to do for heem for now; ve vill heff to vait for der Heterodyne,” a woman’s husky voice said very quietly. A slightly higher one said, “He’s waking up, Mamma.”

Well, that explained where he was at least. “Ken’t hyu turn on der lights?” he asked, a little annoyed. “Hy iz preety sure dis iz not how blackout iz supposed to go.”

A large hand smacked him none-too-gently upside the head. “Dun be more of an eediot den hyu ken help,” Mamma Gkika said, perching on the mattress beside him. “Der lights IZ on, iz hyu eyes dot iz not seeing dem. Hyu is lucky dot’s all hyu heff to handle; hyu ought to have died ripping dot ting up like dot, how schtupid iz doze old coots lettink hyu boyz be?”

Frigg ducked out from under her hand reaching up to check his temperature. “Hy vasn’t schtupid, der vas chust no time, hy had to…” to do what, really? He’d watched his only friend left get ripped into snakeskin lacework right in front of his eyes and been too damn late to do a thing. And now he couldn’t even see to keep fighting--he’d be useless if he couldn’t dodge, his whole fighting style depended on the precision. Maybe the masters had been right all along to throw him away, and now Frigg had just proved it. “Neffermind,” he said, quieting down. “Hy vas schtupid.”

Someone threw open the doors hard enough they banged against the wall, yelling for Mamma. “Don’t do eet again,” Mamma commanded sternly, making the bed shift as she got up. 

“Hy von’t,” Frigg acknowledged. He wasn’t going to do anything but sit here in this bed with his broken legs and his sightless eyes while his brothers fought without him outside and no one in the world missed him to care.

*****

Days passed. Apparently they really DID have a new Lady Heterodyne, a real one straight off of Master Saturnus’ line. He heard people talking about her going around fixing everything her father’s cruel neglect had left to rot, from the battlements to the sewers, and Mechanicsburg had been a frenzy of fugue-busy minions and frantic celebration for days. 

Frigg sat in his hospital cot and listened to the clock tick steady seconds away out of his millenia. His bandages itched, and some nurse kept threatening to break his fingers too if he didn’t stop messing with them. He wondered whether this meant Mirrors might come back, whether he still could come back even, whether he’d bother to visit Frigg if he could. He hadn’t, in the few hours between returning before and the Lady Regent sending him back out. Frigg had just come off guard duty and heard he was already gone. Maybe he was dead too now. 

Maybe if he hadn’t all but called Pythios weak right to his face and then let him go off alone, they could have taken it down together and still both be fighting.

Maybe if Frigg had hit that clank a little harder it would have exploded for real. 

Someone threw the door open wide, strode in with quick, sturdy little steps. Mamma Gkika’s clicky heels followed at a more reasonable pace. “Dey iz all stable cases in here. Vot do hyu ectually tink hyu iz goink to be able to do right now?” Mamma asked whoever it was, clearly laughing at him.

“I won’t know until I actually sit down and find out what the problems are, will I, Gkika?” The stranger’s voice was totally unimpressed with the Jagergeneral, which made him either braver or stupider than most jagerkin Frigg knew. There were hints of the madness place too, though, so maybe that was it. Mamma snorted.

“Fine, fine, hyu iz goink to do dot ennyvay, hy gots eet.” There was the quiet smack that was probably Mamma burying her face in her palm--Frigg had heard that one a lot in the last few days, he was getting really good at recognizing it--and the heavy clomp of workboots coming closer to Frigg’s bed.

There was a scrape of chair legs and a little bonk noise as the stranger sat down. “Hi there. I heard you were brought in during the Battle. That was crazy, wasn’t it? What’s your name?” 

Frigg tried to get his face turned the right way, tilted his chin to focus a little higher than it sounded like the voice was really coming from. He’d accidentally addressed a nurse’s tits the first day and he still had the bruises, he wasn’t making that mistake again. Wow this guy smelled good. Leather and soap and something else… “I’m Sorin, by the way” he said, and Frigg hoped it wasn't as obvious when he startled as he thought it probably was. “What happened to land you in here?”

Frigg just gawped for a moment. This kid wasn’t THE Heterodyne, but he was A Heterodyne. Didn’t he have more important things to do than talking to broken constructs?

Oh fuck. He’d just said that out loud, hadn’t he. “Uh. Hy em Frigg, sir,” he said a little belatedly.

There was a long pause where Frigg couldn’t figure out what was happening, and then Sorin said “You’re NOT broken,” in a voice so rock solid sure Frigg started to believe it a little bit in spite of himself. “And it's nice to meet you, Frigg.”

This guy’s voice was very kind. Frigg wondered out of nowhere what his hands felt like. “Hy kind ov iz broken, though, Master,” he objected a little wryly. “Mine eyes iz not goink to get better on dey own, und hy iz not much gud to hyu without dem. Hy dun tink der iz ennyting ennyvun ken do about it at dis point.” He tried to shrug like it didn’t matter much. “Vas mine own fault, ennyvay. Mamma sez hy iz not to jump on enny more explosions,” he said with a little chuckle. “Hy tolt her dot vould not be ein problem.”

There was a stubborn little sound and a shuffle of cloth. “Your eyes, huh? Do you know what’s wrong with them? Damaged corneas? Nervous system problems? Torn retinal nerve maybe?”

Frigg tilted his head to the side. “Dose sure vere a lot ov vords hy dunt know, Master,” he said finally. “Hyu vould heff to ask Mamma or vun of der gurls, hy vill neffer be ennyvun’s medic.” The mattress shifted slightly below Frigg and there were calloused fingers tugging away his bandages. Part of Frigg had been sort of hoping that he would actually be able to see if he opened his eyes and weren’t essentially blindfolded, but there was no real difference. Maybe it was a slightly lighter black. He really was blind then. This Sorin’s “neat toys” and the vodka bandages he’d heard the nurses bitch about more than once really weren’t going to cut it for something like this. Welp.

There was a click of something metallic sliding into place and something hard and cold pressing delicately against his temple. “I’ll have to talk to the jagerdoktors, yeah, and maybe see if there are any books in the castle…” The whatever-it-was spark thing made a little beep and a series of high dings, and there was a little leathery sound as Sorin apparently put it away. At least he’d tried, Frigg thought. “But I am definitely going to fix this.”

Wait, what?

For a couple of heartbeats Frigg’s mind was totally blank. “Hyu iz goink to fix me?” He asked, totally bewildered.

Sorin didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

“...Hokay.” Someone was wrapping new bandages around his eyes, and it bought Frigg a few seconds to sort through his racing thoughts. “Ken hy tell hyu sumtink?”

Sorin made a little questioning noise like he was thinking about something else. Frigg internally shrugged; this was still miles better than Bill and Barry. 

“Der vas...anodder jager who came down mit me. Ve took der Brau togedder, heem und me, und hy vant hyu to know dot he served our Master Saturnus faithfully all his life, und he vould heff served hyu dot vay too, hokay?” Frigg was not crying. He blinked his useless eyes against the bandages and swallowed hard. “He vas so happy vhen hyu und hyu modder turned op, und he fought like green Death. Hyu vould heff been verra proud to heff heem,” Frigg finished in nearly a whisper. He got the impression Sorin had gone very still. 

“What was his name?” Sorin asked, voice serious and low like willingly borne pain. 

“Pythios Stephanidos.”

There was a startled beat. “Did he have a snake tail?” Sorin asked, suspicious. Frigg nodded, a little surprised, and there was the sound of the chair legs abruptly being shoved back. “RIGHT. Don’t go anywhere I will be right back.” 

The chair got knocked over and the angry stomping boots ignored it completely, throwing the doors back to hit the walls again. Frigg sat back against his pillow and blinked. “Hokay.”


	3. Chapter 3

Frigg didn’t have to wait long. Maybe half an hour later there was the sound of muffled arguing out in the hall. Then a weirdly heavy trundling noise. Wheels? The instrument carts usually sounded lighter that that. Maybe some sort of spark thing. It stopped with a little click a few feet away, and there was a sound like pain being swallowed back and a low grunt of effort, boots that stomped over towards him sounding much heavier and slower than before. What in the seven little hells was Master Sorin doing? Something big bounced a little on the mattress right next to him as Sorin put it down a little awkwardly, and Frigg took a startled breath that smelled like...well, like blood and antiseptic and whatever it was they used to coat the tubing in here, but also almost like…

“Hey Frigg,” Master Sorin said, sounding very pleased with himself. “You have a new roommate. Actually, I can’t believe you didn’t ALREADY have a new roommate! Medicine isn’t even my SPECIALTY and I know that emotional trauma is not conducive to recovery. I have to do a quick sweep of everyone else here--Where’s Gkika?” Boots stomped off as their Heterodyne yelled for Mamma. 

Trembling, Frigg reached out. Warm smooth scales, strong arms, delicate hands curled into fists in his shirt. He breathed in for what felt like the first time in days. “Pythios?”

And then there was a wet face pressing into his neck, soft lips pressing frantic kisses against his cheek and temples, frantic hands carding into his hair as he was wrapped up in gloriously whole coils. Frigg gave a laugh that was half a sob and wrapped his gorgeous disaster up in his arms, twisted his legs around long coils, held on with all his claws as he felt his new bandages grow wet. “Pythios!”

Frigg curled up around him with his whole body, kissing Pythios’ hair because he couldn’t bring himself to separate long enough to reach his face. “How dare hyu?” he asked, groaning at the way Pythios’s coils constricted hard and possessive around him. “Who tolt hyu hyu could die? Dis iz der vorst habit hyu heff, und dot iz a long fukink leest. Hy hate hyu so much hy kent stand it. Vhat de hell vas hyu tinking, hyu asshole, hyu are der vorst ting dot effer happened to me" He ducked his head and tried again to properly kiss Pythios’ face, found his forehead at least. Pythios gave a choked laugh and buried his head in Frigg’s neck again. 

Frigg pushed his hands through Pythios’ hair, knocked it out of whatever stupid ponytail this asshole had tied it up into and let it fall over his face, softer than anything Frigg had ever felt and blue fire how had he thought he could manage without this? Pythios’s shoulders hitched against Frigg’s chest and Frigg caught again the scent of salt water and blood. 

Pythios nuzzled Frigg’s neck like he was going to stay there forever and whispered “Vot der fok iz dis? Why iz hyu blind, hyu wreck? Dot iz not hokay, hyu kent see how handsome hy iz like dot. Hyu should heff gone deaf instead.”

“Dot vould heff been great, hy vouldn’t heff to listen to hyu bitchink all der time. Ennyvay,” he admitted, cupping Pythios’ cheek, “vas lookink at hyu handsome dot made me blind in der first place, mebbe dis vill be goot for me.” Frigg petted his hair and tried to get his throat to unstick. “Come on, asshole,” he whispered tenderly, trying to smile. “Dis iz der shittest necking hyu heff effer subjected me to, vhere iz hyu teeth? Come kees me for real.”

Pythios started to open his mouth to say something when an embarrassed cough stopped him. Some brother or other was standing fairly close by and cackling. “Uh, actually. Wow. Those are an awful lot of stitches that aren’t actually holding anything together anymore. I...may not have thought this through enough. Hell.”

...Apparently the Heterodyne had come back. Well then. Frigg felt his cheeks heat and he hid them in Pythios’ hair. The Heterodyne sighed. “Okay,” he said sounding ridiculously tired. “I hate to do this, but, uh, can you untangle so I can stop Pythios bleeding out?”

Frigg jerked up and away from Pythios like he’d been shot. “Hy iz so used to hyu schmelling like blood hy didn’t effen realize, fok.” He ran panic-clumsy hands down Pythios’ bandaged shoulders as he totally failed to actually move. Frigg growled. “Vhat iz hyu doink hyu schtupid sheet, hy chust tolt hyu not to die enny more. Hy fukkink hate eet.”

Frigg suspected it was only the direct order of a Heterodyne that got Pythios to actually unwind his tail. Frigg’s body felt cold and blood-sticky without the familiar crushing pressure. He stroked Pythios’ arms where they were still wrapped around his shoulders, listened to the little pulling sounds of thread as the Heterodyne repaired Frigg’s love with his own hands.


End file.
